THE PERIPHERALISATION OF ASYLUM ACCOMMODATION: MILITARY SITES, VESSELS, AND HOTELS IN ENGLAND

The geographies of UK asylum are changing. After over a decade of the Home Office ‘hostile environment’ policy, first announced in 2012, recent years have registered an increasingly restrictive approach including the use of asylum accommodation centres as an explicit deterrent against immigration. Following a rise in hotel accommodation during the pandemic, asylum seekers are now being relocated to former military sites and vessels. This process, that I am labelling ‘peripheralisation’, indicates an important shift from a dispersal policy (supporting community-based housing) to the physical concentration and confinement of the asylum population in large-scale, sub-standard accommodation centres in peripheral areas of the country. These spaces have already met stark criticism from migrant advocacy groups because of their detrimental effects on asylum seekers’ mental health and social integration. And yet, we know very little about their legal nature and their implications for migrants’ support networks, including local authorities and the voluntary sector. Moreover, whilst some evidence has been collected by migrant support organisations, there is a lack of systematic research which documents the experiences of asylum seekers housed in these new spaces.
The project has the following objectives:

To advance ‘peripheralisation’ as a conceptual lens to capture current trends in asylum spatial management;
To understand the legal character of asylum accommodation centres, by documenting how these spaces are legally regulated and managed;
To analyse the effects of the use of accommodation centres on asylum seekers and their support networks, including local authorities and civil society organisations;
To make theoretical contributions to the field of camp studies through an attention to the temporal dimension of asylum accommodation spaces as well as the mobility of asylum seekers between them;
To support and improve the operational strategies of charity and policy stakeholders advocating for the rights of asylum seekers.

The achievement of these objectives will be supported by a qualitative investigation of four case studies in the England, which represent two different types of accommodation centres (i.e., military sites and vessels) and two moments of change (i.e., relocation and closure of hotels). A focus on sites and moments of change allows for a holistic understanding of both the temporal and spatial dimensions of asylum accommodation. Methods comprise content analysis (of legal and policy documents, grey literature, and national and local tabloids and broadsheets), and in-depth interviews with a variety of stakeholders, including 24 local authorities’ and charities’ representatives, and 70 migrants who are, or have been, housed in these accommodation sites.
The project works through close collaboration with four partner organisations, in order to directly benefit the following stakeholders: migrants, who will be involved in the research process (through VOICES Network); migrant advocacy organisations (the British Red Cross), whose operational strategies will be bolstered by a review of the legal documents regulating these spaces; local councillors (through Migrant Champions Network and the South West Strategic Migration Partnership), by enriching their awareness of the challenges faced by asylum seekers in their constituencies, and of the role of local authorities in supporting them.
Overall, this project will advance our understanding of the spatial management of the asylum population through the concept of ‘peripheralisation’. It will evaluate the impact of new accommodation centres through empirically-informed analysis and will work closely with relevant advocacy bodies to address the evolving needs and rights of asylum seekers.